The corset has been an indispensable supportive undergarment for women, in Europe for several centuries, evolving as fashion trends have changed and being known, depending on era and geography, as a pair of bodies, stays and corsets. The appearance of the garment represented a change from people wearing clothes to fit their bodies to changing the shape of their bodies to support and fit their fashionable clothing.
A "pair of bodies" or stays, the supportive garments that predated corsets, first became popular in sixteenth-century Europe, with corsets reaching the zenith of its popularity in the Victorian era. While the corset has typically been worn as an undergarment, it has occasionally been used as an outer-garment; stays as outer-garments can be seen in the national dress of many European countries.
The English word corset is derived from the Old French word corps and the diminutive of body, which itself derives from corpus—Latin for body. The term "corset” was in use in the late 14th century, from the French "corset" which meant "a kind of laced bodice." The meaning of it as a "stiff supporting so constricting undergarment for the waist, worn chiefly by women to shape the figure," dates from 1795. The term "stays" was frequently used in English circa 1600 until the early twentieth century, and was used interchangeably with corset in the Renaissance.
For most of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries corsets were known, in English, as bodies or stays. These garments could be worn as under or outer wear. The women of the French court saw this corset as "indispensable to the beauty of the female figure."
Early pairs of bodies were typically made out of layered fabrics like linen and silk, stiffened with starch, and were not tightly laced as it was impossible to do so in this era without damaging your expensive and ridiculously time-consuming to make, bust support garment. While a few surviving bodies/stay exist that are structured with steel or iron, these are generally considered to have been either orthopedic or novelty constructions and were not worn as part of mainstream fashion, although some dress historians believe that they were not worn at all.
By the end of the sixteenth century, bodies were commonly worn garment among the elites of Europe. The garments gradually began to incorporate the use of a "busk," a long, flat piece of whalebone or wood sewn into a casing on the corset in order to maintain its stiff shape. The front of the corset was typically covered by a "stomacher," a stiff, V-shaped structure that was worn on the abdomen for decorative purposes.
